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Australia: Trans woman wins case against female-only app

August 23, 2024

An Australian court has ruled that female-only app "Giggle for Girls" engaged in "indirect" gender identity discrimination against Roxanne Tickle after her account was manually removed.

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Roxanne Tickle in front of Australian Federal Court court house with media and legal team
Trans woman Roxanne Tickle has won a discrimination suit against Australia's Giggle for Girls appImage: Dean Lewins/AAP/REUTERS

An Australian court on Friday ruled that removing a transgender woman from a female-only social media platform constituted "indirect" discrimination.

Roxanne Tickle sued the Australian app "Giggle for Girls" and its founder, Sall Grover, for unlawful gender identity discrimination.

What else do we know about the case?

Tickle said Grover manually removed her account after seeing her photo and "considering her to be male."

Australia's Federal Court ordered Giggle for Girls to pay Tickle 10,000 Australian dollars ($6,700, €6,000) plus legal costs.

Tickle had also sought a written apology, but the court did not order one in its ruling.

"Tickle's claim of direct gender identity discrimination fails, but her claim of indirect gender identity discrimination succeeds," Judge Robert Bromwich said.

Bromwich said Giggle for Girls considered only sex at birth as being a valid basis for gender identity. Tickle was assigned male sex at birth but underwent gender-affirming surgery and changed the gender in her birth certificate in 2018.

Giggle for Girls described itself as a "safe space" for women to discuss and shared their experiences, according to court filings. It had some 20,000 users in 2021.

The app suspended operations in 2022, but Grover has announced plans to relaunch it soon.

Roxanne Tickle wiping tears in front of Australia's Federal Court
Giggle for Girls was ordered to pay Tickle 10,000 Australian dollarsImage: Dean Lewins/AAP/REUTERS

Tickle hails verdict as 'healing'

"There is so much hate and bile cast on trans and gender diverse people simply because of who we are," Tickle said after the ruling, while hailing it as "healing."

Grover denounced the ruling in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying: "Unfortunately, we got the judgment we anticipated. The fight for women's rights continues."

Grover's defense had argued that sex is a biological issue and not one of self-identification.

Legal expert Paula Gerber of Australia's University of Monash said that the judge determined that the removal of Tickle's account did not constitute "direct" discrimination since there was not enough evidence to demonstrate that Grover knew that Tickle was a transgender woman.

This is the first time the Federal Court, which is Australia's second-highest after the High Court, has made a ruling on gender identity discrimination since changes were made to the Sex Discrimination Act in 2013.

sdi/rc (Reuters, EFE)